351: Chapter 351 Inspiration is not water, it's ice

The collective response of "Yes" was still circling above the stadium's dome, its echoes yet to fade.

Lin Que was in no hurry to continue; instead, he stood at the center of the stage holding the microphone for a full three seconds.

The spotlight pinned his shadow onto the large LED screen behind him, motionless.

"First of all, have any of you thought about why inspiration 'leaks'?"

As the second question was thrown out, the noise in the stadium noticeably lessened compared to before.

In the front row, several girls who had been taking notes to his rhythm stopped their pens; in the back row, a boy who was about to raise his hand lowered his arm.

No one answered.

Because this question wasn't like the first one, which could be brushed off with a single word.

Lin Que waited for two beats before speaking unhurriedly into the microphone.

"We have always thought that inspiration is like water—if you can't catch it, it flows away.

But there is a fatal flaw in this saying."

He held up a finger.

"Water is a liquid; it naturally has no shape.

If inspiration were truly like water, it would already be a blurry mess while inside your head. You wouldn't even be able to feel that you 'just had a brilliant idea.'

Something that can give you such a clear perception must have a shape."

The students in the first five rows of the inner field began to lean forward slightly.

"Therefore, inspiration is not water; it is ice."

Lin Que's speaking pace slowed down slightly.

"When it's in your mind, it's a solid. It has edges, an outline, and you can even feel its weight.

However, the moment you sit at your desk, pick up your pen, and spread out your manuscript paper, the temperature of the surrounding environment begins to rise.

You get distracted, you get anxious about how to write the first sentence, and you obsess over whether your wording is beautiful enough.

These distractions are heat. Once the heat rises, the ice melts."

He paused for a beat.

"So, what you need to do isn't to find a larger container to catch the water, but to learn how to take a 'photo' of it to preserve it before it melts."

The entire venue was silent for a full four seconds.

In the front row, the tall, thin boy with glasses from Jiangcheng No. 2 High School loosened his grip on his pen.

He was the one who had said upon entering that "writing a novel and writing a College Entrance Examination essay are two completely different things," but now, he had unconsciously unscrewed his pen cap.

In the first row of the teaching and research area, the tip of the fountain pen in Zhang Chaowei's hand rested on a blank line and stopped.

He didn't write anything, but he didn't pull the pen back either.

His thumb rested on the side of the pen, his fingerprint lightly stroking the cool texture of the metal body.

The metaphor of "taking a photo" held up logically.

For a seventeen-year-old kid to use such common language to deconstruct the cliché writing problem of "capturing inspiration" from a new angle truly exceeded his expectations.

But he still didn't start writing.

On the stage, Lin Que had already walked to the long table at the side.

On the table sat a black water-based marker and a portable whiteboard, which Fei Yuncheng had prepared in advance according to his request.

He picked up the whiteboard and turned to face the audience.

"Theory alone is useless. Next, let's do an experiment."

He tucked the whiteboard under his left arm, his tone switching from lecturing to commanding.

"I ask every student present to please close your eyes now."

The students throughout the venue looked at each other.

"Close them first."

Lin Que repeated, a non-negotiable certainty seeping through the microphone.

A few students in the front row hesitated for less than a second before their eyelids closed first.

Immediately after, this silent obedience spread backward row by row, like the first domino being pushed over.

The lights in the stadium had already been dimmed by seventy percent; now, nearly thirty thousand people closed their eyes at once.

That silence of over ten thousand people holding their breath at once felt as if even the sound waves had been sucked away.

Standing in the spotlight, Lin Que's fingers tightened slightly on the grip of the microphone.

"Next, take thirty seconds to construct a scene in your mind."

His voice was exceptionally clear in the silence.

"The morning that left the deepest impression on you. No need to make it up, no need to beautify it—just a specific morning you have actually experienced."

"Thirty seconds. Start."

The stadium was as quiet as an empty city.

The teachers in the teaching and research area did not close their eyes.

A few senior teachers glanced at each other, but no one spoke. They were observing the direction of this experiment.

The thirty seconds passed extremely slowly.

"Alright, you can open your eyes now," Lin Que said.

"Now, pick up your pens and immediately write down three words in your notebooks.

Just three words. No need to write sentences, and don't hesitate. Write down the first three that pop into your head."

The sound of pages turning and pen tips hitting paper erupted throughout the venue.

Tens of thousands of pens hit paper almost simultaneously. The fine rustling sound converged from all directions, rolling into a low echo beneath the dome.

Lin Que didn't just wait on stage.

He put the whiteboard back on the table, picked up the wireless microphone, and walked down the three steps at the side of the stage.

He walked directly into the inner field student section.

This move caused a slight stir throughout the stadium.

The spotlight operator reacted quickly, the beam following his steps down and sweeping out a bright path through the gaps in the student formations.

Lin Que walked to the fourth row and stopped in front of a student in a Jiangcheng No. 2 High School uniform, glancing sideways at the words in the girl's notebook.

"What did you write?"

The girl's face turned beet red under the spotlight, her voice carrying obvious nervousness:

"Mist, breakfast, Mom."

Lin Que nodded without comment and continued walking further in.

He patted a boy with glasses on the shoulder.

The boy froze for a second, glanced down at his notebook, and spoke with a voice steadier than the girl's but with a shaky end:

"Alarm clock, quilt, cold."

Lin Que nodded again.

In the middle, the No. 1 High School formation.

Without even looking, he called out:

"Fang Zhiyuan."

Fang Zhiyuan almost bounced out of his chair, holding up his notebook and shouting loudly:

"Playground, whistle, sweat!"

Beside him, Wu Di muttered, "Is it really necessary to be that loud?" only to be shoved back by Fang Zhiyuan's elbow.

Lin Que randomly picked students from two other schools.

Their words were "curtain, light, cool" and "ceiling, quiet, white" respectively.

After all five sets of words were read, he walked back to the stage along the aisle.

The spotlight locked onto the center position again. He turned to face the audience and switched the microphone to his left hand.

"Five people, fifteen words. Has anyone noticed a problem?"

The stadium was quiet for two seconds.

A few students raised their hands, but none could explain why.

Lin Que didn't wait for them.

"Everything you wrote down are nouns and adjectives.

Breakfast, alarm clock, cold... Out of fifteen words, there isn't a single verb."

As these words fell, the tip of the fountain pen in Zhang Chaowei's hand in the teaching and research area finally moved across the paper.

"It's not that you intentionally avoided verbs; it's that when the brain recalls a scene,

it naturally prioritizes grabbing objects and feelings rather than things that are happening."

Lin Que picked up the whiteboard, walked to the edge of the stage, and used the marker to write down Fang Zhiyuan's three words.

Playground. Whistle. Sweat.

The three words stood lonely in the center of the whiteboard, like three scattered chess pieces.

"What you remember are fragments of a scene, not the actions within it. But the vitality of writing is precisely hidden within verbs."

He unscrewed the marker cap and wrote two lines on the whiteboard, the marker making a sharp squeak against the surface.

The eyes of the entire audience followed his pen tip; even the students at the furthest reaches of the third-floor stands were staring at the close-up shot being projected simultaneously on the large screen.

The two sentences were finished.

He held the whiteboard high, aiming it at the camera in the center of the stadium.

The large screen clearly projected the restructured version of Fang Zhiyuan's three words:

"The whistle bit into the last wisp of mist above the playground, tearing it in two.

One half evaporated against the turf, while the other climbed up the boy's drenched nape.

Beads of sweat slid down the fuzz of his sideburns, hovering for half a second at the sharpest point of his jawline,

before letting go and falling, silently smashing into the red granules of the track like a period that no one would notice."

In the next second, a low, sharp intake of breath—the kind that only happens after being struck in the chest by something—came from all directions.

In the front row, Fang Zhiyuan stared at the words on the large screen, his entire body pinned to the back of his chair.

His Adam's apple bobbed; he didn't dare let his gaze linger on the screen for another second.

He looked down at his own three crooked words, his knuckles gripping the corner of his notebook until the paper curled slightly.

He never imagined that the three words he had casually scribbled in his notebook,

would, through that person's hands, turn into a morning that could only be felt by standing on that playground.

There was even a faint scent of the rubber track being heated by the sun in his nostrils.

Wu Di sat beside him, his lips moving as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he just slowly leaned back against his chair and remained silent.

Lin Que put down the whiteboard and tossed the marker back onto the table, his voice devoid of any boastfulness.

"This is the tool for taking 'photos' of inspiration.

Nouns are anchors, responsible for fixing the elements within the scene.

But what brings a photo to life is the verb."

In the first row of the teaching and research area, Zhang Chaowei looked down at his notebook.

At the bottom of the title page, several lines of fine handwriting had appeared at some point, the ink not yet fully dry.

His brow furrowed slightly as he recapped his pen and slowly leaned forward.

The female teacher beside him, who had led four graduating classes, noticed his movement. She turned her head and asked in a low voice:

"Old Zhang, what are you doing?"

Zhang Chaowei didn't turn his head; his gaze remained locked on the youth on stage who was putting down the whiteboard.

"Once he finishes this section, I have a question I want to ask him in person."

...